Pre-order links https://ffm.to/spiralsalbum
Kate Ellis has just released ‘The Story You’ve Been Told”. This is the lead track from Kate Ellis’ album ‘Spirals’.
This is a beautiful and gentle track, and if this song is anything to go by, we’re very much looking forward to the rest of the album.
With hints of Eleanor McAvoy, Kate Ellis’ voice sits smoothly in the mix. They are clear and well mixed. Kate’s vocals show both a fragility and a confidence that is extremely endearing. Lyrically, this is important stuff. Ellis seeks to let the listener know that the “story’s you’ve been told” about yourself, your childhood, who you are, may not be true. You may be carrying trauma and false memories and Ellis paints a lyrically clever story here.
The Story You’ve Been Told is a gentle song that simply washes over you. With extremely subtle instrumentation to bolster up that smooth as honey lead vocal, this is a song that you’ll return to many times. In an odd way, its a feel good song, despite the subject matter. It leads the listener to consider alternative viewpoints to those that they have held in the past.
There’s some lovely development in this song. When the backing vocals come in they are just sublime. At the same point, a very very gentle and distant percussion track joins in and the whole song really starts to come to life.
There is, I think, a pedal steel panned to the right and a fiddle panned to the left. Both ever so gentle and subtle and really exceptionally well played. I’m particularly impressed with the confidence of the final section which, to all intents and purposes, is acapella but with just minimal instrumentation to hold everything together.
This is an absolutely beautifully mixed track. From my own personal perspective I’d give a wide boost around 4000Hz more presence and life, a slight cut in the low mids to remove proximity effect from the vocal track and a wide boost around 80 will bring out more warmth, especially in the piano track.
Really beautiful work from Kate Ellis here. I’m always excited to hear real quality like this in a modern Americana Folk album, and Ellis most certainly does not disappoint.
We give this song four ears out of five
